37 week appointment

I went for my 37 week appointment yesterday morning, and things are still the same as last week. I am still holding at 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced. The doctor can feel baby's head, but says she is still a little high (-1 station). Her heart rate was great and I am still feeling good movement. Baby Emma seems a little too happy in my belly! So while I am feeling a little bummed, I know that these numbers don't always mean anything, I could go into labor today, or in 3 more weeks, no one can know for sure. The only thing we do know, is that our little pink bundle will be here soon and boy are we ready to meet her!

Mission Accomplished!!

3 weeks til D- Day and I am proud to say, the nursery is FINISHED!!! I never thought we would be done in time, but we are. It was not without its obstacles for sure. Let's begin by saying I had a perfect vision for this nursery from the moment we found out we were going to have a baby girl. We were having a princess, and her room should reflect that! So lets begin with vision 1: Crown Moulding:

Anyone who has put up crown, knows it's no easy task...but nothing is too hard or too much for our baby girl right??? After several cuts, and resetting angles on the miter saw, we figure out that one wall is warped as warped can be...an impossible cut for our saw. What about my perfect vision? What about my little princess? Well, her daddy must love her ( love her or scared of the pregnant lady's wrath and crying spells) as he sat on our front steps for a good 3 hours hand sawing and filing this piece of crown moulding to make it fit perfectly on our warped wall. I went to check on him several times and each time he was diligently sawing and filing away, lovingly to say to me with a side smile, "Don't expect this in every room in our house" to which I responded with a smile and rubbing my belly, "you are such a good daddy, I love you!" Well, 3 hours later, the moulding fits! Let's all take a moment and thank the daddy to be!

Despite the crown moulding run in, and a little episode with the trinket shelves, the room looks beautiful. My perfect vision is complete for my perfect little princess. Take a look! The pictures go around the room so hopefully you can get the feel for how it looks as a whole.

Dresser, wall hangings and trinkets:

All her trinkets: (you can see the crown moulding corner that daddy did by hand)

Rocking area:

Crib with her name above it:

Close up of crib and wall letters:

All we need now is you, sweet baby Emma Katherine!

We have Carpet!: Basement Update

The carpet came for the basement today and what a difference it made! It looks like a real room down there now. See for yourself:

Before:

After:Before:After:

After:So as we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I would like to say that I am so thankful to my amazing husband Joe, and the family and friends who helped us come this far. Its a hard job and not a fun one. Words can't say how thankful I am to all of you!

While we are not completely done with our new basement, we will be moving the office down to this wonderful new space over the next couple days. We also hope to have the nursery finished over the weekend. What a blessing! Stay tuned!

36 weeks down, 4 more to go!

4 weeks to go...28 days...YIKES!!! I had my 36 week appointment this morning and found out I am 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced! While it is perfectly normal for a woman to sit at this stage for weeks, its exciting to me that at least something is going on in there! It is making it more real that our sweet baby girl is getting ready to make her big debut!

As promised in prior posts, I have some pictures of the nursery so far. Hopefully this weekend we will be making more progress, as the carpet for the basement comes tomorrow!! This means I can finally move my desk and office out of baby Emma's room! Here is what we have so far:

The Crib:

A good look at all her clothes:

Her dresser and lamp. The letters will be hung on the wall above her crib:
In typical pregnant woman fashion, I have begun my nesting phase. Yesterday I did laundry until midnight making sure to wash everything in site that would touch baby's skin. So I washed that full closet of clothes, blankets, socks, wash clothes, hooded towels, headbands, hats, crib bedding, and everything else under the category baby. I even wiped down stuffed animals and rattles that can't easily be tossed in the washing machine. Now, that doesn't sound so crazy right? Well, how about the fact that I sorted all the laundry according to colors. Not just whites and darks like normal laundry, I did a load of light pinks, dark pinks, purples, yellows, blues, greens, reds, and dark stuff ( like denim). Who does a load of light pinks or a load of yellows you may ask? PREGNANT PEOPLE! My theory was that I didn't want any of those super cute and perfect clothes to bleed on to another color. Made sense to me, until I made 50,000 trips from my basement to the nursery which makes for climbing 35 steps each time! But its done now and all is put away! WHEW!

Just for fun, here is a picture of me and my giant belly at 36 weeks:

and I can still get bigger? In 4 weeks I will look like a balloon stretched to its maximum...the kind of balloon where even the thought of a sharp object will make it pop. Steer clear....she's gonna blow!

5 weeks to go!

So with just under 5 weeks to go til D day, we are diligently trying to get everything done in time for our sweet baby girl. As most of you know, I work from home, so my office is actually where the nursery will be. Well, in order to make way for baby, we had to take on the big job of finishing our basement...YIKES! So, in October, my handy hubby started on our basement... this is what we were dealing with:

SO, you can see our work was cut out for us! Well after a few short days and the help of my handy uncle, who gets paid solely in Mountain Dew and Bologna sandwiches, and my handy hardworking in laws, we got to here:

Now, all our drywall is done, and as I type, my in laws are hard at work painting the new walls and I am happy to report that our carpet is being installed on the 20th! Here is where we are right now:

What a blessing to have family to help! The room should all be primed tonight and ready for the real paint tomorrow. More pictures to come as more progress is made!

We have also made progress in Baby Emma's room. I am proud to report that we have painted, put the crib and dresser together, and her closet is full with beautiful clothes and accessories. (Pictures coming soon). However, with having 2 rooms "under construction", my living room looks like this:

It will all be in order soon enough! At least that is what we keep telling ourselves!

Count me in!

With our family just about to change, (and because everyone we know has one) I decided it was time to join the blog world to keep everyone updated on our soon to be new family. Please subscribe so you can receive email updates of when we post new stuff. Most of the blogs will be about our days leading up to our new arrival and the days living life as a new family, so get ready to meet the Crosley's!!